Twenty years ago the only way to get from Ritten to Bolzano was in your car or on the bus. The road is very twisted and has too many switch-backs to count. So in the ninties they built a wonderful cable car aka an all-season gondola to take people up and down the mountain. It's smooth, easy, and fast. It only take 12 minutes to reach the city.
We live in Klobenstein (within Ritten) so we love the cable car. We drive 5 minutes to Oberbozen (within Ritten), park the car, and take the cable car down to Bolzano. In 2011 the price was 3,50 Euro round-trip for adults and free if you were staying at a local hotel and in possession of a RittenCard. Now in 2012 they have increased the price. Instead of 3,50 Euro it's 10,00 Euro. The price has more than doubled! When I was trying to buy my ticket last time I thought the machine was broken because the price was so much higher.